Hower v. Susquehanna Mutual Fire Insurance

Citations

• 9 Pa. Super. 153
• 1898 Pa. Super. LEXIS 137

Syllabus

<p>Insurance — Company cannot mislead insured by shifting defenses.</p> <p>Public policy requires that insurance companies should be required to deal with their customers with entire frankness and fairness. They may refuse to pay without specifying any ground, and insist upon any available ground, but when they plant themselves upon a specific defense, and so notify the assured, they are not permitted to retract after the latter has acted upon their position as announced and incurred expenses in consequence of it. An insurance company defendant cannot play fast and loose.</p> <p>Insurance — When actual notice relieves from technical proof.</p> <p>Where the company received notice within twenty-four hours of a total loss and it was acted upon by an authorized adjuster, no further notice or proof of loss is necessary. Technical proofs could but restate that of which the company was already informed, and the law does not require vain things.</p>